The Burning Desire of Saul: Part Two
Part Two: Madness
In Part One of this series, we met Saul as a teenager who hid himself among swords and shields on the day of his coronation. Just prior to an encounter with Samuel, a prophet of great renown in Israel, Saul traveled with a servant of his house on a boyish adventure to look for lost donkeys, flirt with girls, and fret about getting back home by curfew. That encounter with Samuel resulted in a nonnegotiable nomination to serve as the prince of Israel - a political office demanded by a people not content to be governed by God.
Now we find that teenager as a man, meeting him in a picturesque scene. He is reclining against the intertwined trunk of a pomegranate tree on a hot day, surrounded by trusted military advisors. Unbeknownst to him, his grown son, Jonathan, has fled the shade of the tree on a secret mission that will change the direction of a nation.
However, Saul does not notice his son’s absence. Instead, he beholds the beauty of the tree. The sun shines through the lattice of leaves, blanketing him in patchy shade. The red bulbs of fruit, caught in the light, seem to glow from within. Pomegranate trees grow about as tall as any other tree, but what sets them apart is their sprawling width, giving rise to a canopy that looks as if it ought to tip over out of balance off the trunk. This vibrant tree, though, stands strong, capturing his gaze.
It’s a beauty that arrests and comforts him. He carries in his body the layered trauma of stolen and shattered desire. The beauty of nature addresses his hidden longings for now. But there are still more wounds for him to endure, wounds that the shade of glowing trees will not heal. His past has harmed him, yes, but it is the environment of his future - one that steals the possibility of being seen, soothed, and safe - that will drive him to isolated madness.
There is perhaps no biblical story that has had more of an impact on my imagination than the story of Saul’s rejection as king. It is in this small, quirky story that I have found crucial lessons for the life of my ministry, the church, and the families I work with. And just like in Part One, this is a story all about desire.
The work of Curt Thompson, MD once again serves as my inspiration for part two of this series. I introduced you to some introductory concepts from his book, The Soul of Desire, in the last post. We saw that every child needs to be in an environment in which their desires are seen, soothed, and safe. Without those fundamental needs, children can enter adulthood without the proper tools to handle their desire. And adults who do not handle desire in healthy ways can get caught in broken cycles. Desire that is not seen, soothed, and safe can stay hidden in the human heart until it bursts through channels that are not healthy. This is what I believe happened to Saul.
Now I will add another layer to this understanding of desire, that of beauty. In The Soul of Desire, Thompson goes on to discuss the role that beauty plays in desire. Beauty itself, Thompson says, is what we long for when we desire. The very nature of our longings is a reaching out towards the ultimate beauty - God, our creator. God placed such desire in our hearts because God desires to be known and to know us in turn.
We feel this longing for beauty in the things we desire. Wether we long for friendships or french fries, relationships and pleasures are not just instrumental objects that make us feel good; they are forms of beauty in which we want to participate. Pleasure is beautiful - we feel it in relationships, paintings, music, food, bodies, and more. We want to join in the beauty of those things.
When we feel this longing, we then seek to acquire those things that point to beauty. We are made to pursue friends when are lonely, a partner when we are in love, and food when we are hungry. But, as you might guess, this pursuit is a delicate balance. If we do not have an environment in which we are seen, soothed, and safe, our brains will keep motivating us to acquire beauty, even if it needs to happen outside of good boundaries. This point is where it can go all wrong. In the absence of healthy channels for desire, our brains activate our more primal neural networks, expending large amounts of mental energy to scheme for ways to get what we want and then attain it by any means possible. Moreover, our brains will do all this motivational work beneath our conscious awareness. They become sneaky control room operators, swaying us to behave in certain ways in pursuit of something we don’t even know we need.
Let’s make that more concrete. A middle school girl who is lonely but sheltered from other students by her parents may not feel seen, safe, or soothed by her family in her desire for friendship. Therefore, her brain will shift into high gear, hunting for opportunities to find relationships. As a result, every social encounter she has takes on a heightened importance - she’ll spend hours wondering after the fact if she acted awkwardly, or if she looked and talked in a presentable manner. Soon, she fixates on her appearance and pursues fashion towards relentless ends. But what she desires is not a good image; it’s friendship. Her brain is telling her to pursue image because she has no safe environment to pursue friendship because of her family dynamic.
However, a brain can go on overdrive for more reasons than poor childhood environments. Grief and trauma can do the same thing at any stage of our lives. When we lose something we desire or love (like a loved one or a career dream), our brains still want the beauty we sought. Our behaviors adapt without us recognizing it, tempting us to reach for false desires when what we long for is a much deeper beauty that is not so easily replaced. Trauma, on the other hand, is the ultimate disruptor. When we experience something like abuse, violence, or extreme manipulation, our brains have to expend almost all their energies on keeping us safe, leading to all kinds of unintended consequences. A person in the wake of trauma who does not leave his house is being kept safe, but being homebound is not the beauty he longs for.
Thompson’s key insight has to do with the way our relational lives are impacted when our brains are on overdrive. Brains, it turns out, can only tolerate so much. If our brains, due to trauma, loss, or poor environments, over function in an effort to attain the desires we long for, there’s less mental space to adequately respond in social environments. In order to navigate marriages, families, and workplaces, all of us must be able to tolerate a degree of social discomfort like differences of opinion, difficult communication styles, etc. When we are flourishing, we have more tolerance for discomfort. When our desires and behaviors are out of whack, we generally have less tolerance to handle social discomforts. This ability to hold discomfort is what psychologists call the window of tolerance.
When our windows of tolerance are small, every little trigger sends us to a place of rigidity or chaos, Thompson says. When someone makes a mean comment, we’ll snap instantly into black and white thinking (rigidity). Or if a coworker doesn’t invite us to an outing with other office mates, we’ll immediately spiral into feeling worthless (chaos). Our brains simply don’t have enough room to hold the discomfort, so they revert to mental survival mechanisms that don’t actually help us. They’re too preoccupied with getting the beauty they desire to function well in normal spaces.
In a moment we’ll return to Saul. History has referred to him as a madman. I’m going to attempt to persuade you that Saul had a low window of tolerance, perhaps shaped in him by Samuel, who also had a low window of tolerance. The ability to discern the difference between madness and a human response to the lack of being seen, soothed, and safe, is critical for us. Because as I said, this is all a story about desire. And desire is all about beauty, and beauty is all about God. Such a deeply rooted piece of Saul’s humanity was bound to explode in the same way it does in our churches, families, and individual hearts when left unattended.
We began with Saul reclining under a tree. But let’s rewind. Some years after Saul’s coronation, there arose an enemy named Nahash. Nahash was king of the Ammonites, a neighboring culture growing in strength. All we are told is that Nahash was on a rampage that led him directly to the Israelite village of Jabesh-Gilead. The poor villagers made a desperate attempt at surrender. Nahash, however, agreed to their terms only if each villager let him gouge out one eye. Yikes.
Saul, now a grown man, was overcome by the Spirit of God (1 Sam 11:6) when he heard the news. He mustered an army unto himself despite reluctant naysayers in Israel. Saul made war against Nahash and pulled off an improbable victory to the delight of the villagers of Jabesh-Gilead. The nation of Israel rejoiced, prompting a second coronation gathering in which all people affirmed Saul, not as prince (Hebrew “nagid”), but as king (melek).
Unfortunately, Saul had little time living the good life. Right away, the peace was disrupted by Saul’s son, Jonathan. In the aftermath of battle, Saul camped with his army in the north at Bethel. For whatever reason, Jonathan gathered a separate garrison and went to Geba in the south. Without telling Saul, Jonathan attacked a Philistine outpost. The Philistines - a Canaanite people group - are the big baddies in First and Second Samuel. The problem here was not so much that Jonathan attacked, but that the news of his victory sent a warning to the Philistines that they needed to take the threat of Israel’s soldiers seriously.
In response, the Philistines marched to a group of hills just beside Saul’s camp with intentions of taking out the king. Jonathan and the other garrisons assembled with Saul’s personal soldiers and prepared to defend Israel. But the amassed soldiers felt only a sense of dread growing in the camp. They clearly saw that they were outmatched and outmanned. The Philistines even brought war chariots. The one hope they had was that Samuel promised to arrive seven days after the soldiers gathered and offer sacrifices to God, and that act would secure his blessing over their campaign.
But seven days passed - and Samuel did not come.
Saul looked around. His soldiers were trembling and vomiting. One by one they started abandoning camp, hiding in caves or crossing the Jordan river to safety. With every passing breath his eyes became more set on the horizon, hoping to see the silhouette of Samuel appear. But nothing pierced the backdrop of the setting sun.
Feeling pressure from his doomed army, Saul erected an altar. He ordered his armor bearer to bring the offering, and he burned God’s offering himself. And just as fate would have it, the moment the flame caught, the voice of Samuel called out from behind Saul - “What have you done?”
Saul turned around. His response was simple, factual, desperate. My paraphrase: “I waited seven days. You did not come. My men are leaving… the ones remaining could die. We needed the blessing of God.”
Samuel, when presented with the facts, gave no room for nuance, and certainly would not entertain the recognition personal fault. “Because of what you have done,” he said to Saul, “Your kingdom will not endure. God will take away your crown and give it to man who actually loves him” (Hebrew “a man who pursues God’s own heart”).
Saul was speechless. Samuel was the religious giant who sought him out personally as a boy. Samuel was the one who said, “I see promise in you. I believe in you. And God has chosen you.” Samuel was the one who plucked Saul away from his life and threw him into a royal office tainted by a disobedient people. And now, after one mistake for which Saul’s guilt was questionable at best, Samuel - who had arguably functioned as his father figure - was done with him. But even worse, Samuel told Saul that God was done with him.
One of the more remarkable dynamics of First and Second Samuel is the characterization of Saul before and after his rejection. There is the Saul of valor and the Saul of madness, and what stands between them are the words of Samuel. After they were uttered, it did not take long for Saul’s descent to begin.
Immediately after Samuel’s rebuke, Israel’s combined army prepared for war against the Philistines now that they had God’s blessing. Saul and his closest companions cleared their minds under the pomegranate tree in the scene we began with. Reeling from the words of rebuke, Saul had to feel like his true intentions were not seen. He desired to preserve the safety of those he served. Not only did Samuel not see those intentions, he openly chided Saul, and then reminded him who was in charge.
This event was disruptive to Saul’s inner life, functioning on the level of trauma as I described earlier. Saul had lost something he deeply desired - not kingship (which he was ambivalent about), but to be seen as good and worthy by Samuel, his father figure. But just because Saul’s desire to be seen was torn from him didn’t mean that his desire went away. Remember - desire with no outlet builds up and explodes. We can imagine that Saul’s brain activated his primal neural networks, searching for ways to attain what he needed. However, his brain told him to attain a false need, a decisive military victory. Saul didn’t actually need a military victory; his real desire was to feel seen.
Just as his army was preparing for battle, Saul issued a decree: anyone who eats before victory is achieved shall be cursed. The soldiers heard it and were distressed. But the person who did not hear the decree was Jonathan, who was taking his own initiative. He and his armor bearer had snuck out of camp and went down to the Philistine camp. (We would do well to notice here that Saul, who hid from others as a teenager, has a son who hid from others as a teenager.) Without a soul noticing, he infiltrated a Philistine outpost and executed a surprise attack, creating a frenzy. Saul’s camp noticed the frenzy from far above and mobilized into action, leading to a sound defeat of the Philistines. Unfortunately, in the aftermath of the initial attack, Jonathan paused for a dinner of dates and honey, unknowingly breaking the decree.
When all Israel gathered, Saul knew something was off. He questioned his soldiers one by one to see if he could get to the bottom of it. Jonathan eventually stepped forward and confessed that he had broken the oath by eating before the battle was over. Jonathan’s words made his father react like a madman. Saul’s desired a righteous victory that would perhaps make God, Samuel, and the people see him as good. When his plan was hijacked by his own son, his brain had no more room to tolerate normal disruptions. And as we saw earlier, otherwise healthy people with a low window of tolerance can snap to a a rigid and chaotic state of mind when triggers occur.
Saul announced to the crowd that Jonathan must die. Jonathan, like Saul just hours ago, had done something wrong without knowing it. Saul rebuked Jonathan like Samuel had rebuked him, demonstrating the power of rejection and its likeliness to be passed on to the next generation. When they heard the verdict, the wide-eyed soldiers were stunned by their king’s decision making. They intervened, refusing to let Saul execute his son. Jonathan, thankfully, was safe. But Saul’s reputation was not.
Even still, the conflict wasn’t quite over. Shortly after the battle, Samuel approached Saul with a word from the Lord to wipe out a nearby enemy village, the Amalekites, and leave no living thing left. Saul had a desire, now burning in his heart, to be seen by Samuel and God. So, thinking he was doing a good thing, Saul raided the Amelekites but spared the best sheep and cattle to offer as sacrifices to God. Samuel responded to Saul, yet again, with black and white thinking. In essence, “Saul, because you did not follow the instructions perfectly, I am done with you. Your kingship has been revoked.” And again, Samuel makes the rejection divine in nature: “Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, the Lord has rejected you as king” (1 Sam 15:23). In a moment of heartache, Saul asks for forgiveness, laying his desire bare. Samuel, in turn, said no (15:26).
This second account of rejection shows us that Saul’s tendencies were influenced by his religious father figure, Samuel. Samuel operated from a place of rigid and chaotic thinking, indicative of a low window of tolerance stemming from an unmet desire to be seen. One must wonder if this same rigid dynamic was felt between Samuel and Eli far before it was felt between Samuel and Saul. Low windows of tolerance are passed down to children. And this does not spell good news for how Saul will treat David.
I’ve shown you that the cycle Curt Thompson has identified which begins with stifled desire and then ends with a low window of tolerance is exactly what played out in the story of Samuel’s rejection of Saul, and then Saul’s irrational behavior to Jonathan in response. Tragically, Saul’s descent into madness accelerates considerably after these events into actions and decisions that are indefensible. But if you know what to look for, you will see this exact cycle in the biblical story with so much clarity that it will drop your jaw. If you read the story for yourself, you’ll see the story of a man forced to retreat further and further from reality because his brain is motivating him to do whatever it takes to be seen, soothed, and safe by other people. The harder it is for him to attain a basic recognition of his human desire, the more violent he becomes. To name a few…
Saul became tormented by an evil spirit (likely mental illness in today’s language) and requested a musician to soothe him. Unbeknownst to Saul, the boy who was selected, David, was Samuel’s choice to be his replacement as king. David had great success in the king’s service, even rising to the task of great military victories. When Saul and David returned from battle, young women began singing, “Saul has slain his thousands, and David his tens of thousands” (1 Sam 18:7). Saul became so jealous that the next time his mind was tormented, as David began playing his harp, Saul picked up his spear and hurled it at him. Saul needed to be seen. David was a threat. His chaotic brain told him to eliminate the threat.
Later, David forged a deep friendship with Saul’s son, Jonathan, and then married Saul’s daughter, Michal. It became clear that the hearts of his own children were turning to David, so he tried to kill David once again. When Jonathan came to David’s aid, Saul referred to his son as a bastard to his face.
David eventually fled for his life. A group of priests from Saul’s family tribe came to David’s aid and provided him shelter in Nob. In the process of hunting for David, Saul berated his advisors, saying that if they cared about him they would share anything they knew. One of them spoke up and told him about the priests at Nob. Saul sent for them and asked why they cared about David more than him. Then he had them slaughtered. His violence was not driven by concern for his throne, but by anger that everyone noticed David but not him.
These are not the actions of a well man, and they are certainly not the actions of someone fit to be king. They are, however, the actions of a human being driven to madness due to a reservoir of desire burning in his heart, desire that had been traumatized and neglected by the one person who had the power to soothe him, Samuel. Because at the end of the day, Saul never wanted to be king. Samuel - who had been neglected himself - didn’t see that in him. Samuel consistently provided an environment in which young Saul’s desires were not seen, soothed, and safe. On the contrary, his desires were shunned. And those desires - to be seen, valued, and to feel like a normal person - built up until they exploded, melting his brain into the permanent mold of rigidity and chaos with no window of tolerance whatsoever. The more it happened, the more isolated he became.
Let’s end by reimagining these events. Saul became impatient with his fearful army as he waited for Samuel to offer a sacrifice. He offered the sacrifice himself. Samuel arrived frustrated and hurt. But here’s what he says in this alternative telling: “Saul, these aren’t the actions of someone ready to be king. But I see what you were trying to do, and it is understandable that you wanted to help your soldiers. Thank you for trying. I’ll take it from here. Let’s talk under the pomegranate tree afterwards about what you could have done differently. If it makes sense for someone else to be king, you’re still going to be a valuable part of our community.”
Wishful thinking, right? Wrong. It’s what every person needs.
If God truly rejected Saul as king as the story says, I read that decision with grace. My faith tells me God rejected Saul as a king, not as a person. Samuel rejected Saul as a person. I believe God still loved Saul and wanted better for him, even if he did not want him to be king.
Perhaps if Saul had heard those alternative words under the illuminated pomegranate tree, the beauty would have impacted him in a different way. Rather than acting as a temporary balm for his trauma it would have reminded him of a God who loves him. And that reminder would have propelled him towards the face of his son. He would have noticed Jonathan’s absence, sent for him, and prevented the sneak attack that altered the course of Israel’s history.
Because at the end of the day, this is not the story of a madman. It’s a story about desire. In Part Three, we’ll see that it’s also a story about, churches, families, and our propensity to reject people.
Coming Soon:
Part Three, Tamarisk